Fund Ownership Visibility

Contributed by Katie Walker

One of the many notable transformations from the FST project is fund ownership visibility, or fund balance ownership, as you may often hear it referred to.  In the future state, post Workday Financials go-live on July 1, units will be able to accurately report on funds available without needing to wait for year-end settlement and carryforward calculations.  The consistent transfer of funds will make it clear who "owns" the fund balance and who the "owner" is of any funds, as well as where the funds have transferred and how much has been spent.

This new model allows units to streamline manual tracking methods for these funds that they may have been using, which in turn means a reduction in the risk of errors and increased capacity for staff to devote time to analytical work rather than manual tracking of funds.

We realize, however, that even with its benefits, this represents a departure from our usual meaning of "budget" -- instead of "budget" meaning spending authority or funds available, it now refers to the unit's plan for the year.  There will need to be training on how to view expendable fund balances and a change in the types of transactions done.

With those types of change management activities in mind, we're reconvening the Budget Process Redesign group to help us refine materials to distribute to our stakeholders.  These are materials that will support you in this change.  You can see particulars on the timeline below, but in general, know that we expect to have final materials ready in June. 

The materials being developed will include:

• FAQ Document
• Detailed transaction processing document that will ultimately include unit-level guidance
• Revised finance policies (especially FIN-033 Monitoring Cash Balances and Resolving Deficits)
• A detailed timeline
• Specific reporting guidance (budget to actuals variance reporting and fund balance reporting)

If you have questions about this change, please email them to askfinance@virginia.edu with the subject line "Fund Balance Ownership Question" and we will include them in our FAQ and incorporate them in the resources above!

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See Katie Walker's presentation on this topic in the recording from the April 6, 2022, Fiscal Administrator's Meeting recording, available here.  (Click on "Fiscal Administrators" - the Fund Ownership Visibility content begins approximately at minute 56)